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violin and piano
Instrumentation: violin and piano
Duration: 5 minutes
Composed: 2012
Premiere: September 9, 2012 – Hrabba Attladottir (violin) and Gregg Kallor (piano); Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society, Half Moon Bay, CA
William Butler Yeats' raucous poem, A Drunken Man's Praise of Sobriety, ends a set of songs I wrote several years ago (always best to close with a drinking song), and I thought it would make a fun romp for violin and piano.
Instrumentation: violin and piano
Duration: 15 minutes
Composed: 2012
Premiere: September 9, 2012 by Hrabba Attladottir (violin) and Gregg Kallor (piano); Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society, Half Moon Bay, CA
My maternal grandmother was a talented violinist, but she stopped playing after her mother died. By the time I was alive, her arthritis prevented her from holding the violin. Her parents bought her a baby grand piano for her sixteenth birthday so that she and her sister, a cellist, could invite friends over to play chamber music. That was the instrument on which I learned to play.
I grew up six blocks from my grandparents and saw them most days of the week. We were very close. They came to every concert I gave and always sat right in front (arriving super early to ensure snagging that prime real estate). They never got to hear this music, but I feel their presence very strongly when I play it.
I wrote Short Stories imagining my grandmother playing it, and my grandfather listening to it. She was a gentle, quiet soul and he was the strongest man I've ever known. Both had a touch of mischief. They were deeply in love for nearly 63 years.
Short Stories:
Faces and Names
A Kept Promise
Sticks and Stones
